Instagram launches Reels, its new video-music service to fight off TikTok

TikTok’s growing popularity has got Silicon Valley concerned, so much so that major tech companies have tried to emulate the video-music smash feature. After Facebook’s Lasso, Instagram has now come up with a brand-new feature called Reels that lets users create video clips with music swap, besides lip-sync. Instagram Reels is currently available only in Brazil where it is called Cenas, but it is likely to be rolled out to other markets in the coming days to counter TikTok globally.

Much like TikTok, a user’s popularity on Reels is based on how many times a video has been watched. Users can create a 15-second long video clip and soundtrack it with music available from a huge catalogue, or voice from other videos. Since Reels is integrated right within Instagram Stories, it is more accessible than downloading a standalone app, which is not the case with Facebook’s Lasso.